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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



H lOHU JUL 261892 A"'' 



CAPT. D. N. WALKER'S 

NOTES ON THE "CRATER FIGHT," 



JULY 30, 1864. 



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Copyriglit by \V. P, Hopkins, 1S92. 

Kiclimonil, Va., .July olst, 1889. 
^V. p. llopkiii.s, E.sq. 

339 Bioadway. Lawrence, Mass. 
Dear Sir, — 

I send you herewith my notes ot the "Crater" fight, my ah.seiioe Ironi town cniisijig (!elay in .so doing 



On the day of the battle of the Crater, 30th July 18Ci, the 1.3th Va. r.attalion of Artillery A. N. V. was 
commnnded by Major Wade Hampton Gibbes of S. C. as gallant a man a.s ever lived, Capt. I'as^e McCarthy 
another gallant fellow being Adjutant. 

It was composed of Davidson's Battery of Lynchbui'g, under conunand of Lieut. .las. (.)Ley, the Oiey Battery 
of llichmond, under command of Capt. D. N. WalUer, and the Kingnold .Vitillery of I'ittsylvania, commanded by 
Capt. Crispin Dickinson. The Davidson Battery occupied the salient to the right ot the Crater, the Otey 
Batlerv the next salient to the right, (and manned also a Mortar Battery, back of that position, under Lieut. 
John B. Langhorneof the Otey Battery) and Dickinson's Battery a position on the right of the Otey liattery. 

The Horse Camp was perhaps a mile in our rear. 

Awakened at dawn by the explosion at Pregram's Battery, and the heavy cannonading which followed, i- 
was soon learned that the enemy was in possession of our line at that point, since known as the "Crater." 
Quite early in the action. Major (iibbes asked me to furnish him with an oIKcer ami men to man Davidson's 
Battery, as Lieut. Otey was in a bomb-proof utterly unfit to coniniand, and the men had left Iheir guns I sent at 
once ordering Lieut. Ed. Norvell and the men at the Horse Camp to report on the lines. Soon after this, I do not 
remember the lime, I heard of the serious wounding of Major Gibbes, and saw him carried from tne field. As I 
was senior Captain, in the absence of Davidson, tliis put me in commaml of the Battalion, and I at once went to 
the point of most importance, and took Major Gibbes place at Davidson's Battery. I found the guns idle and 
deserted except by two or three of the men. Corporal Hall of the Co. a gallant fellow was killed. 

The embrasure of the most important gun was filled up, and we could not fire over it. With the aid of these 
men and some infantry, the embrasure was cleaned, and this (inn which bore oii the left of the enemy, continued 
its deadly work, Capt. Preston of the Va. Lifautry was shot while assisting us about this time, and I think 
another officer of the same command was wounded. Soon after this, Lieut. Norvell and the men from the Otey 
Battery arrived, and this gun kept up an incessant fire until the end, and the ojily other gun of this battery of 
any use in this fight was also worked by them. 

A great injustice has been done these men of tlie Otey Battery by the Orator.s and writers of this Crater 
Fight, and confusion has been produced by a similarity of names. The men of the Otey Battery manned the 
guns of Davidson's Battery after they were abandoned. Lieut. Otey wlio was court-martialed for cowardice and 
ordered to be shot, but pardoned by President Davis or his sentence coinmnied to reduction to the ranks, had no 
connection whatever with the Battery of that name. 

A month or more after the Crater Fight, the Davidson Battery was put under command of thiit most 
gallant officer, Capt. Hampden Chamberlayne, not because he was at the Crater, but because he was thought to 
be the proper officer to command it. When the enemy after the explosion entered our works, they should have 
pushed on; but they faltered, why I know not, allowing our men who had retreated on either side of the Crater 
to rally to the adjacent saliejit, and to lecover from the confusion. Then when they attempted to push on to 
Blauford, the sharp shooting of a few deterjnined men, and the fire of artillery on both flanks, and a battery it 
our rear, commanded 1 think by Capt. Flanders of Haskell's Battalion, (to whom due credit has never been 
given) caused them to take refuge in the Crater. Li the mean time the Mortar Batteries, certainly the one 
manned by Otey Battery men under Lieut. Langhorne, (Private George Savage of the Otey Battery was shot 
through the right foot, while carrying an order from Major Gibbes to Lieut. Langhorne but succeeded in reaching 
him and Capt. Page McCarty was wounded near the Mortar Battery endeavoring to reach the lines) and I think 
also the others to our left, all all so skillfully arranged by the engineer in anticipation of this fight coninienced 
their work, and the fate of the day was almost decided before the infantry called from our right reached the field. 



Who the etiyiiieer was who cniislnioleil t.lie.sc works, I do not know, (hut I have sinci' leanieil tliat it was 
(ieii. Ilaivis of Beauregard's slalf,) but I considered him lije winner of the battle, and his name sliould be known 
I do not wisli to detract from the courage aiui dash of what is known as Mahone's first charge, seJdom equalled, 
never surpassed. But it gained no t'oothohl on the line tietween the Crater and our position, and that is all I 
could see or know anything about. 

'J'he earth thrown up by the explosion formed a line between the crater and the enemy perhaps 12ft high. 
The enemy had to pass over this to get into the Crater from their line and vice versa, and the open field between 
these twn points was swept by by this one gun of Davidson's Battery and by Wright's Battery of 4 guns belonging 
to the command C'f Colonel Hilary Jones, another man deserving more credit than he will ever receive. Huddled 
together by thousands in and around the Crater, the mortars and sharp-shooters and napoleons on either side were 
hurling destruction every minute, if not second, and sweeping the open field like a tornado, there was no place to 
retreat, no place for shelter. There wasagradual accumulation of dead and wounded until from our position, it 
looked like an inclined plane of dead men, stretching from the top of the works for perhaps 100 ft., and the 
balance of the field was thickly covered with the dead and wounded, when the fire of the enemy's artillery was 
weakening perceptibly, and that fi-om the Crater had almost ceased, the second charge of Mahone was made and 
most gallantly. Some 200 or 300 of the enemy attempted to get back to the lines, and we gave them 2 rounds of 
canister, and I e.'cpecl Col. Jones gave them more. The infantry had charged the dead and dying, which the 
artillerry had been pummelling for 6 or 8 hours, the firing ceased, the fight was over and the victory was ours. 
I entered the Crater, war is horrible and here was one of its most horrible pictures, men mangled in every con- 
ceivable way, with great ugly wounds, torn to pieces, dismembered, showing that shells not minnies had caused 
this dreadful destruction. 

The credit of this victory, I have thought and still think was due in the first place, to the engineer who 
arranged our lines, leaving us who were on the lines, to be blown up somewhere; and if not blown up, to terribly 
avenge the death of our comrades on the very spot of their destruction, and to thus save Petersburg and 
Richmond. In the second place, it was due to the artillery. The guns of Davidson's Battery on the right 
and those of Col. Jones on the left, swept tlie front of the Crater, rendeiing an advance from the enemy's line of 
retreat fiom them, practically impossible to any large body of troops while the guns commanding the rear of our 
line kept back any advance form the Crater towards Petersburg. The mortars did the balance, though I do not 
know the effect produced by the Otey Battery and Dickinson's guns which were fired down the hollow in front of 
the Crater by order from (ien. Lee direct. I presumed to demoralise the troops massed there. 

It was an artillery fight, and they nobly performed their duty. Where any failed their places were filled by 
others, who never faltered, who finally left the lines, when forced, without desertions, and who remained steadfast 
to the Lost Cause, eveji to saving the artillery column of the Army of N. Va. from Sheridan's Cavalry at 
Appomatox Depot. 

This paper has been submitted to Col. H. P. Jones, who commanded the artillery on our right of the Crater, to 
Lieut. Page McCarthy, adjt. of the 13 Va. Battalion, to George Savage, M. West, and K. Fleming and others who 
were with the guns and mortars and is considered by them correct as to facts. 

A quarter of a century has passed since the events of which we write transpired. Another quarter of a 
century will hardly leave a survivor. With kind regards I am 

Yours Truly, 

D. N. Walker. 



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